The Dandy - only ?1.20 - now with 'FREE' reprints!

Discuss or comment on anything relating to Britain's longest running comic. The home of Korky the Cat and Desperate Dan. Has been running since 1937.

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Big Simon
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The Dandy - only ?1.20 - now with 'FREE' reprints!

Post by Big Simon »

The Beano costs 80 pence and is packed with great looking new strips and no wasted space. The Dandy costs 40 pence more, and what do you get? Well, in this week's 36 page issue:

(1) A full page 'contents page'.
(2) A full page bought-in 1995 reprint of a 'Tootuff' cartoon from France.
(3) Three pages of 'Cuddle and Dimples' reprints.
(4) One page 'Owen Goal' reprint.

and lest we forget...

(5) Four pages of reprints from a 1966 Dandy issue.

Does this constitute good value for money?

A real pity, especially since The Dandy has been looking so good recently... :cry:

Lew Stringer
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Re: The Dandy - only ?1.20 - now with 'FREE' reprints!

Post by Lew Stringer »

To be fair, there's no deception that the pull-out 1966 mini-comic reprints are "free".

I would imagine those 1966 pages are "new" for the majority of readers anyway.

Pity about the more recent reprints, but comics have a budget which is balanced out across the year. This issue may not be representative of future issues.

Yes, Dandy is 40p more expensive than Beano, but the printing/paper is superior and there's 4 more pages. We expect both comics to be the same price because they always had been, but economics are different today.

One thing to bear in mind is that reprints in The Dandy are not without precedent. There were a few reprints prior to the revamp of course, but for a long time in the early Seventies there were several pages of regular reprint in the comic every week (Desperate Dan, Black Bob, and Screwy Driver, to name but three). Compared to that, the modern Dandy has been remarkable for retaining new material for so long.

In fact many comics have featured some reprint over the years.

Lew
The blog of British comics: http://lewstringer.blogspot.com
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AndyB
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The Dandy - only ?1.20 - now with 'FREE' reprints!

Post by AndyB »

The Beano deliberately ran six weeks of Bob Nixon Roger The Dodger reprints last year, for example.

(Screwy Driver reprints? They matched Bill Holroyd's later style rather than the early ones, so I always thought they were originals... just goes to show!)

Lew Stringer
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Re: The Dandy - only ?1.20 - now with 'FREE' reprints!

Post by Lew Stringer »

AndyB wrote:
(Screwy Driver reprints? They matched Bill Holroyd's later style rather than the early ones, so I always thought they were originals... just goes to show!)

The lettering gave them away. Those old fashioned squiggly tails from the speech balloons.

Lew
The blog of British comics: http://lewstringer.blogspot.com
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Big Simon
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The Dandy - only ?1.20 - now with 'FREE' reprints!

Post by Big Simon »

When I said 'Free' reprints I was kinda being ironic!

Yes, obviously I know there's a long history of reprints in British comics, but what I object to is The Dandy using reprinted strips which have been recycled from barely a couple of years ago. The character of 'Owen Goal' (brilliantly drawn by Nigel Parkinson) is being heavily promoted in The Dandy in anticipation of World Cup 2006, but bizarrely not with any new artwork. All of it is recycled stuff.

As an adult I notice this and certainly my two nephews, who I also buy comics for, definitely notice this. Kids are extremely observant. One said to me last week: 'I can remember reading this 'Cuddles & Dimples' cartoon before. Why have they put it in the comic again?'

I didn't really have an answer for that.

I feel that just because The Dandy is on superior glossy paper (a bonus) it can justify running 'recent' reprints for ?1.20 a week. I just hope Nigel Parkinson gets paid twice!

Lew Stringer
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Re: The Dandy - only ?1.20 - now with 'FREE' reprints!

Post by Lew Stringer »

Big Simon wrote:When I said 'Free' reprints I was kinda being ironic!

Yes, obviously I know there's a long history of reprints in British comics, but what I object to is The Dandy using reprinted strips which have been recycled from barely a couple of years ago.

I agree with you on that. DCT and Fleetway used to have a policy that they'd only reprint strips that were at least 7 years old. The reasoning being that the readership should have changed by that time.

Lew
The blog of British comics: http://lewstringer.blogspot.com
My website: http://www.lewstringer.com
Blog about my own work: http://lewstringercomics.blogspot.com/

AndyB
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The Dandy - only ?1.20 - now with 'FREE' reprints!

Post by AndyB »

The forty-year old reprints were good though. Did you notice that Bighead and Thickhead in that issue was drawn by the artist who later drew Bully Beef and Chips, the Jocks and the Geordies, and quite a number of Dirty Dick strips?

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Peter Gray
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Re: The Dandy - only ?1.20 - now with 'FREE' reprints!

Post by Peter Gray »

The Dandy will be next time £2.99
is this just a Christmas issue Dec 6th :roll:
or the new price.....
quite a huge leap.......way too much.....mind you DFC is £3..

Bully Beef and Chips is back..

there needs to be more comic pages......the one unique thing The Dandy has over other magazines..
maybe go for a cheaper paper like the Beano..

Conor B
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Re: The Dandy - only ?1.20 - now with 'FREE' reprints!

Post by Conor B »

It's not a Christmas issue, that's the one after...
If it's a permanent price hike then that's no Dandy 2009 for me. Just Beano and MAX.

The Dandy tends to put the price up when there's lots of "free" gifts. There have been two issues where the price has been pushed up 51p because there were 7 "free" gifts. Lucky for me, one time I was in Ireland so I payed €3.27 instead :)
Comic Genius Runner Up 2006

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